Neil Johnson - Simply Complexity

 

Neil Johnson - Simply Complexity: A Clear Guide to Complexity Theory 

4 ⭐

Genre: Non-Fiction, Science, Academia, Research, Physics, Nature, Environment

Pages: 256

Format: Paperback

Publisher:  OneWorld Publications

Date Published: 1st October 2009

 

Book Blurb: 

What do traffic jams, stock market crashes, and wars have in common? They are all explained using complexity, an unsolved puzzle that many researchers believe is the key to predicting – and ultimately solving—everything from terrorist attacks and pandemic viruses right down to rush hour traffic congestion.

Complexity is considered by many to be the single most important scientific development since general relativity and it promises to make sense of no less than the very heart of the Universe. Using it, scientists can find order emerging from seemingly random interactions of all kinds, from something as simple as flipping coins through to more challenging problems such as the patterns in modern jazz, the growth of cancer tumours, and predicting shopping habits.

My Review: 

As someone who didn’t know anything about Complexity and Complexity Theory before, yet needed to learn about it for a PhD project, this book is fantastic. It is very accessible and easy to understand. It doesn’t use any of the overcomplicated scientific jargon and explains very complex ideas in an easily understandable way with some great real-life examples. Yes, this book was also written a while ago, but the examples that the author uses are still very much relevant today.

The book itself explains the idea behind Complexity and Complexity Theory, its evolution and where it all is today, as well as what needs to be done to take this idea even further and make it a part of scientific research and academia. It looks how Complexity covers a wide range of subjects and disciplines, from anthropology, and economics, to, geography, physics and maths.

Overall: Very accessible and exciting book, with no complicated language and no scientific jargon. Examples are also given to consolidate the understanding and to provide a bigger picture of the Complexity around us. It definitely gave me ideas and was one of the only Complexity books that didn’t include a lot of complex explanations and maths that I would never be able to understand. 

About the Author:

Neil Johnson is the head of a new inter-disciplinary research group in Complexity at University of Miami in Florida. Previously he was Professor of Physics and co-director of research collaboration into Complexity at Oxford University.

https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Simply-Complexity/Neil-Johnson/9781780740492

Prof Sarah Gilbert & Dr Catherine Green - Vaxxers

Prof Sarah Gilbert & Dr Catherine Green - Vaxxers 

4⭐

Genre: Non-Fiction, Health, Science, Academia, Medicine, Popular Science  

Pages: 352

Format: Hardback

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Date Published: 8th July 2021

Book Blurb: 

A gripping, inspirational account of the race to create a functioning vaccine to combat the spread of Covid-19, Vaxxers is the story of two scientists who have accomplished something truly remarkable at a pace that few people ever thought possible.

This is the story of a race - not against other vaccines or other scientists, but against a deadly and devastating virus.

On 1 January 2020, Sarah Gilbert, Professor of Vaccinology at Oxford University, read an article about four people in China with a strange pneumonia. Within two weeks, she and her team had designed a vaccine against a pathogen that no one had ever seen before. Less than 12 months later, vaccination was rolled out across the world to save millions of lives from Covid-19.

In Vaxxers, we hear directly from Professor Gilbert and her colleague Dr Catherine Green as they reveal the inside story of making the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine and the cutting-edge science and sheer hard work behind it.

This is their story of fighting a pandemic as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Sarah and Cath share the heart-stopping moments in the eye of the storm; they separate fact from fiction; they explain how they made a highly effective vaccine in record time with the eyes of the world watching; and they give us hope for the future.

Vaxxers invites us into the lab to find out how science will save us from this pandemic, and how we can prepare for the inevitable next one. 

Book Review: 

It is such a clear, scientific, simple and well-written account of the two lead scientists involved in creating the Oxford AstraZeneca Corona Virus Vaccine. This book explains in depth all the steps that were taken to create this vaccine in such a short time and ready for public use, including creation, design, development, trial, testing, trial result analysis, approval and then production.

I really liked the fact that scientific concepts around vaccine development and design in this book are very well explained in simple scientific language that makes sense for someone who is not as familiar with the terminology, processes or this field in general. A lot of really useful analogies were used to explain more complex concepts too, which helped me a lot to get my head around some of the science behind it.

Also, the book clearly explains how different types of vaccines, not only the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, are created, including the rigorous processes each has to go to be developed, tested and approves, which in turn displays the thorough safety of vaccines. Additionally, the authors discuss how the field improved the safety of vaccines for human consumption, since 1960, explaining all the ethics, policies and criteria that each vaccine has to go through to be safe to give to people.

Authors also don’t shy away from discussing other issues surrounding vaccines and vaccine design and development, such as anti-vaxxers, media influence on whether people trust vaccines or not and funding that is needed to get vaccines to people. Also, challenges when it comes to academia and doing science, as well as making those breakthroughs in developing effective vaccines are all aspects that are discussed in depth.

Each chapter is written either from Prof Sarah Gilbert’s or Dr Catherine Green’s POV, which allows the reader not only to learn about the vaccine that their team created but also allows the reader to get to know the people who worked on it, especially the long hours and sacrifices they had to make in order to deliver this lifesaving vaccine to people.

Overall: A very interesting, informative, factual and insightful book about the creation of the Oxford AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, the pandemic, and the importance of science and vaccine science in general. Definitely recommend it if you don’t know much about vaccines and want to learn more, as this book explains processes in a very simple, yet still scientific way. I will be looking out for more books like this to add to my TBR pile in the future. 

About the Author: